Le Ton bon de Marot:
in Praise of the Music of Language

by Douglas R. Hofstadter

New York, Basic Books, 1997

Reviewed by Richard Kade

Just as Professor Hofstadter's classic, Godel, Escher, Bach... is aptly subtitled a "metaphorical fugue on minds and machines" so, too, is this present work which attains universality of expression on so many levels. While the 1997 classic peers into the concept of thought, we now have a quest for that which is considered the soul.

Constructed with many familiar strands of Bach, Turing, the "crab canon," etc., we now find interwoven a rich tapestry including diversity of brilliance including Ravel, Chopin, Pushkin, Nabokov, Horace, ?sop, the essence of humor and so much more. Above all else, the genius of "Le Ton bon de Marot..." is the way in which this "tour de force" simultaneously is analytical and emotional.

If the frequency of references to Godel, Escher, Bach... over the past two decades in so many other great works is adumbrative of what can be expected with this newest creation, think of what we can anxiously anticipate reading by the 50th anniversary of Leonardo.